Health and Social Care Bill

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

I absolutely concur with my right hon. Friend. For the record in this House, I pay tribute to our colleagues in the Lords for their achievements and their efforts in securing some of the protections for the NHS that we are debating today.

There was absolutely no mention of education and training in the original Bill, despite the fact that the Bill abolishes strategic health authorities, which play a vital role in education and training—for example, by hosting deaneries. Labour Members raised this issue in the first Commons Committee stage. We also tabled an amendment on Report to place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure a comprehensive education and training system for all professions in the NHS, which would have included continuing professional development. Labour Members in the other place then tabled amendments to address the issue. I should note, again for the record, that it was Labour and Cross-Bench Lords, not Liberal Democrat Lords, who argued for those important amendments and who forced the Government to introduce substantive new clauses placing duties in respect of education and training on the Secretary of State, the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups.

However, the critical issue that I want to focus on is how to deal with conflicts of interest in clinical commissioning groups. Clinical commissioning groups will be responsible for spending around £65 billion of taxpayers’ money. They will be made up of a majority of GPs—professionals who run businesses that are largely, and in many cases wholly, dependent on the NHS for their income. Clinical commissioning groups will commission NHS services, some of which will be provided by GPs who are members of the group, or—as is increasingly envisaged by the Government—by companies in which GP members may have a financial interest. The public must have confidence that clinical commissioning groups are making decisions based on patients’ and taxpayers’ best interests, not the financial interests of GPs.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

rose—

[Liz Kendall]

I will finish this point.

However, under the Bill, clinical commissioning groups—the newest bodies in the NHS, and with the least experience—will have the weakest corporate governance of any public body in the country. They are required to have only two lay members. However, there has been no reassurance in this House or another place that those members will be independently appointed. The Government have not even given a reassurance that the chairs of clinical commissioning groups will be lay members. The Government have also failed, at every faltering stage of this Bill, to ensure robust protections against actual or perceived conflicts of interest in clinical commissioning groups.

[Chris Skidmore]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Liz Kendall]

No, I am going to proceed.

Let me remind hon. Members that the Bill started out without any requirement for GP consortia—as they were then called—even to have a board to govern their work, let alone any measures to deal with potential conflicts of interest. On 3 March last year, in the first Commons Committee stage, Labour Members called for effective corporate governance and robust measures to deal with conflicts of interests in clinical commissioning groups.